MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

3/9 Extra bases

The Cubs trimmed the spring camp roster by four, sending right-handed pitchers Marco Carillo and Trey McNutt, outfielder Jae-Hoon Ha, and infielder Jonathan Mota to the Minor League camp. With the moves, the spring roster now is 59. McNutt battled injuries in a 5-6 season last year at Double-A Tennessee.

“He’s got the stuff, he’s got the makeup,” Dale Sveum said of the right-hander. “He’s just got to be more consistent with his breaking ball. He’s got to understand how to use it and when to use it. He works as hard as anybody. His makeup is great. It’s just a matter of going out there and being more consistent on an every start basis.”

* Alfonso Soriano has hit three homers and led off Friday’s game with his second double this spring. The left fielder has shortened his leg kick. Said Sveum: “It might have been time where he came up with it. As you get older, the bat slows down, and you’ve got to have a lot less moving parts to your swing, especially that big ol’ log he swings. Less moving parts, the easier.”

* Paul Maholm will make his first Cactus League start on Monday when the Cubs face the Reds in Mesa at HoHoKam Park.

Wait for the real games when Sveum gets to see up close how heavy is glove is–hopefully some starting pitcher has the guts to tell the staff I do not want him out there defensively. American league–are you listening–he can DH and do we have a deal for you–Contact Mr T Epstein any hour of the day.

Ty…I like it. After all, don’t you think it would be in Soriano’s best interest as well to finish his career as a DH allowing him to concentrate soley on hitting homeruns and OCCASIONAL doubles?? No more pressure on playing the outfield and looking bad may actually enable him to improve his offense. The Cubs can’t accommodate him, he is a natural DH if there ever was one and he has been for many years. Too bad Hendry (and yes, the former Cubs’ ownership that FORCED their GM to sign Soriano in order to raise the value of the team…sigh..blah, blah, blah) didn’t have what was needed to just say NO to SorryohNO. I like your thought about starting pitchers speaking up about poor defense. Maybe Zambrano was????

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